Sheryl Sandberg, Chief Operating Officer of Facebook, is rallying women to pursue leadership positions in business and government despite their fears. In urging women to “Lean In,” she points repeatedly to the confidence of men. She contends that men pursue new jobs and opportunities even if they don’t feel 100% capable of doing the work. Meanwhile, women resist reaching for a professional challenge until they have zero doubt in their ability to succeed. As an executive coach, I can attest that men aren’t always as confident as they may seem. Nor do they always want to lean in.

Men have been told to lean in since the moment of their first step, their first day on a baseball field and their first date. It’s pretty tough to maintain that always-on stance day after day, year after year and meeting after meeting. Men act in different ways when the pressure is overwhelming.

An executive who I worked with is beloved by his staff, even though he berates them. He is brilliant, but belligerent. Abrasive leaders like my client interpret normal interactions as threats to their existence. They see others like lions in the jungle about to attack them. Obsessing with their potential demise at every turn blinds them to how their behavior impacts others. Which is ironic considering that emotional intelligence is essential in today’s highly collaborative business environment.

According to a study by London’s Cass Business School and executive search firm Odgers Berndtson, “82% of managers believe that leaders of the post-Baby Boomer era will need to develop so-called ‘feminine’ skills to motivate their workers.” Those traits include emotional intelligence, flexibility and a talent for instilling workers with a sense of purpose, says Richard Boggis-Rolfe, the chair of Odgers Berndtson.

Men are programed from adolescence to act hard, but they need soft skills to succeed in leadership roles in today’s interdependent business environment. Society’s message to men—“don’t cry”—runs deep. Many men have to put in extra effort to gain the self-awareness that is needed to understand and manage their emotions, develop and maintain relationships and cope with changes and challenges, which includes work/life balance.

In my 33 years of working for some of the world’s best corporations, I always felt that the demands on men to constantly lean in, to be the Type A’s the world expected and to be aggressive have placed relentless pressure men who wanted nothing more than a good family, a decent job, recognition and a chance to grow in a direction not dictated by someone else. Some recent research I conducted confirmed the suspicions that I had.

I recently surveyed men and women to determine their desire to take sabbaticals. Men were as likely as women (65% vs. 68%) to take or request a sabbatical. Spending more time with their families was one of the primary reasons men said they would take a sabbatical if it were offered. The men I spoke with truly regretted how much time they lost with their families by living up to the pervasive image of being “the provider.“

The key point is that society has preordained men to act a certain way. Assuming that all men are Don Draper doesn’t benefit women or businesses. As women lean in, we should also free men from the burden of having to do it all, all the time. We need to give them the opportunity to cultivate their emotional intelligence so they can effectively compete in work environments where the command and control model is quickly becoming outdated. Simply put, we should create the conditions where both men and women can lead businesses and governments as well as balanced lives.

What is it about the behavior of people who truly inspire their managers, who are the leaders we aspire to become? In perusing my files today, I came upon an anonymous article that identified seven traits shared among what the writer entitled ‘Truly Inspiring Leaders”.

Based on interviews with thousands of executives, the author noticed a subset of bosses who ‘inspire their employees and colleagues to achieve more than they ever thought possible’. In the famous book Flowby Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi he talks about people are most likely to achieve their goals when at the edge of anxiety and achievement. Stretch, feel confident, take a risk, and succeed — and repeat. Maybe this is what great leaders do by their behaviors.

Here are the seven traits:

Purpose: inspiring leaders believe success serves a higher purpose. Yet, when you ask them why they’re motivated, they will say it’s all about making other people successful. Unlike their opposite, who are motivated by what makes them personally satisfied, inspirational leaders care more about others than themselves.

Giving Back: Long-term plans of inspiring leaders can include pro bono work or even charitable activities. They want to give back, whether in money, time, thought or heavy lifting. Uninspiring leaders feel no such obligation. For them, it’s more important ‘cashing-in and/or buying physical objects’.

Gratitude: While uninspiring leaders are self-satisfied, secretly believing their success ‘is a natural result of being smarter and better than everyone else’, inspiring leaders don’t hold such grandiose and self-aggrandizing beliefs. Leaders who inspire are indeed deeply and truly grateful. Quite naturally they know their success ‘is hugely dependent upon accidents of birth and circumstance’.

Beliefs and Values: Inspirational leaders ‘treasure their beliefs’. Uninspiring leaders tend to wear their values on their sleeves, following whatever catches their fancy. In order to inspire others, true leaders allow their convictions pervade what they do and say — you can’t help but notice what they are feeling and the internal guidelines they’re following.

Empathy: Clearly, inspiring leaders care about people. Like the world’s finest philanthropists, they recognize and cherish their obligation to help those less fortunate. Given the prevalence with which Ayn Rand’s named was used in the latest Presidential election, we unfortunately learned that some leaders ‘couldn’t care less’ about other people. Ms. Rand’s novels — especially Atlas Shrugged — gave the impression that the poor are merely ‘moochers’ begging for a handout. Like Marie Antoinette, who reportedly said to the populace ‘let them eat cake’, uninspiring leaders emanate a certain disdain for those who aren’t as fortunate as many of us.

Team Focus: To inspire, you must share and spread the credit. Nobody is successful alone. Inspiring leaders rarely talk or brag about themselves. Rather, they take the praise received and redirect it to the team members. For those less than inspiration leaders, they tend to spread blame while taking credit themselves for the good things that happen.

Energy: How rare is it to leave a meeting thinking ‘I’d really like to work here’. The person leading that meeting created an uplifting spirit and direction. Her counterpart would be depressing in comparison, leaving you departing the meeting hoping you’ll never have to work for them or join them on a team.

As we begin the new year, constructing a check list to see how you fare on these attributes would be a worthwhile exercise — you might be surprised by what you find. And as with many managerial behaviors, where you don’t score a direct hit (on the positive side!), you can also build a development plan to focus on a trait that needs more time or guidance to manifest itself. Should you find you’re not exercising ‘inspirational’ behaviors, better to know now than learning later that you could have accomplished so much more.

Steven Spielberg‘s movie Lincoln and Doris Kearns Goodwin‘s book from 2005 entitled Team of Rivals are both respectful appreciations of a quiet man who did extraordinary things. What are some of the lessons we can extract from a closer look at our 16th president?

According to Bloomberg Businessweek, there are five behaviors of President Lincoln that we would be smart to practice when managing ourselves and others.

Short-term pain for long-term gain

What many don’t know — I certainly didn’t — is that the Emancipation Proclamation was issued under Lincoln’s war powers and thus did not establish a ‘legal basis for abolishing slavery across the nation.’ He knew that once the Confederates were readmitted into the Union after the war, ratifying it as an amendment (the 13th) to the constitution would have had no chance of succeeding. Wisely, Lincoln ‘pushed to get it through Congress before the fighting ended.’ While this meant the Civil War dragged on longer than it would have otherwise by delaying a peace delegation with the Confederates, it ensured the Proclamation would pass. What a masterful job of understanding your objectives and being able to clearly see how doing one thing allows you to accomplish another.

Trust your lieutenants

Even if they don’t trust you or agree with you, as Ms. Goodwin points out, by letting your staff do its work, you can achieve great things you could not do on your own. I’ve written before about Royal Little, founder of Textron, one of the world’s first conglomerates, who famously once said that he achieved his successes by hiring people to do what he couldn’t, which was considerable, as it is for most of us. Ms. Goodwin’s best-selling book tells a fast moving story of how political rivals, working at the behest of President Lincoln, who set the agenda and ‘clarified the moral underpinnings of the Proclamation,’ was able to extract the best from each Cabinet member to allow him to achieve his goals. Simply, he put the best people in the right jobs and let them figure it out, providing guidance only when necessary.

Don’t get isolated as a leader

One of President Lincoln’s personal strategies was to ensure he did not get too far from the fray personally. Along with other great managers, he knew how important it was to see for yourself, to touch the people who do the work, and to test what you’ve heard. In Lincoln, Mr. Spielberg shows the ‘president not afraid to court votes himself from time to time — even meeting with Democrats he knew he had little chance of convincing.’ How difficult but how necessary it is to talk to everyone, even those who disagree with you. No other way can you exert influence on those who think differently than you.

It’s okay to use anger, but sparingly

Our image of President Lincoln is of a folksy, soft-spoken, backwoods, ax-wielding man of extreme intelligence gleaned from reading the world’s great books by candlelight. Watching Lincoln you’ll see glimpses of his inner fire, ‘most notably when he loses his temper and delivers a passionate rant about the nobility of the Union cause.’ Why did he express his anger at that moment? To keep his divided Cabinet from giving up on the amendment. I can only imagine the emotional intelligence of this man.

Take your job home with you

President Lincoln was very close to his youngest son, Tad, who had a genuine interest in the Civil War and its legacy and purpose. Innocently, Tad influences his father through their father/son discussions because his conscience ‘reinforced [his] father’s morality.’ Isn’t it a wonderful thing to learn from others when their intent is really just to question? Often the most innocent question or comment can lead to extraordinary insight and reflection.

We can all learn about being good managers — and good people — by understanding how our late President worked with others, trusted, persevered, loved his family and country, and never lost sight of what he wanted to do.

I had the good fortune of hearing Daniel Goleman and Dan Siegel speak at a recent Institute of Coaching Professional Association conference in Boston. Mr. Goleman popularized emotional intelligence for managers and Dan Siegel, MD, is a professor of psychiatry at UCLA’s School of Medicine. Both of them talked about the brain, and I wanted to tell you about some new things I learned.

Emotional intelligence is of even greater value among leadership positions vs. jobs of all kinds. Compared with cognitive intelligence, which accounts for about a third of distinguishing competences among jobs of all kinds, EI acounts for 66%. But when you segment the data on ‘leadership,’ the figures are now 15% and 85%. Differences of this magnitude are not just significantly statistically; they remind us that base line intelligence is insufficient for career success, let alone significant accomplishment.

Brain activity and performance are related. Mr. Goleman presented a graph showing that optimum performance is obtained when brain activity is midway between low and high. At a low level, you’re bored; at a high level, you’re stressed. He suggested that managers wanting to create an environment of optimal performance set clear goals, provide performance feedback and hand out stretch assignments. (You might also want to see the book Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, which is quite readable.)

The ‘Competency Framework’ is composed of four interconnect cells: Self-Awareness; Social Awareness; Relationship Management; and Self-Management. What binds them together is the need to give your full presence and attention and to do good work that demonstrates excellence and competence. And when it comes to interacting with others, new research demonstrates that in conversation we, as humans, stimulate the brains of the other person we’re speaking to. “We stimulate each other — it helps us stay on the same page and causes social coordination. Emotions move from the most powerful person outward,” said Mr. Goleman. It feels good, he says, to be in a state of ‘non-verbal synchronicity.’

Because leadership styles affect the work climate, ‘it is best when a manager uses four or more styles from among these six’:

Visionary: provides long-term direction and vision

Coaching: develops employees for the long-term

Affiliative: creates harmony in work relationships

Democratic: builds commitment through collaboration

Pacesetting: pushes to accomplish tasks

Commanding: demands compliance

Which of these six do you use? I’ve rarely used #6.

Mr. Goleman ended his discussion on the competences of ‘social intelligence.’ While you might have seen these before, I’m including them here because they are worth remembering:

Do you understand what motivates other people, even those from different backgrounds?

Do you sense others’ feelings?

Do you appreciate the organization’s culture and values?

Do you understand unspoken norms?

Do you coach and mentor others?

Do you provide feedback helpful for development?

Do you solicit input from everyone?

Do you support all team members and encourage cooperation?

Dr. Siegel covered three areas entirely new to me that I’d like to tell you about.

“The Healthy Mind Platter” consists of Sleep Time, Physical Time, Focus Time, Time In (reflect inwardly), Down Time, Play Time and Connecting Time. To extract the most from these states, Dr. Siegel recommends ‘connecting with gratitude and generosity to people and the planet. It is your responsibility to be playful.’

A “Triangle of Well-Being” has at its three points: Mind (includes ‘awareness’ and ‘subjective experience’), Relationships (‘context of our mental living’), and the ‘Embodied Brain’ (that regulates the flow of energy and information). Inextricably linked, you cannot separate one from the other if you want to feel and be well.

Being fully present and open means we can and will:

Thrive within uncertainty

Be open to possibilities

Cultivate human connections

Integrate and harmonize all these elements

What I learned reinforced my belief that the brain is not just a wonderful gift to behold; it also contains so much more potential than we can even imagine. And that if we use it to connect with others, we’ll all be better off.

Executives face unprecedented pressure to perform in today’s complex, dynamic business environment. As a former Fortune 500 senior executive,
Frank Faeth understands exactly what it takes for leaders and managers to overcome challenges and seize opportunities.
Frank applies his blue-chip business background to coach high-potential leaders and managers on how to perform at their personal best. Principles of clear communication, relationship building, compassionate leadership and active listening underpin his approach to coaching
. Read Full Bio Here.